Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. eBook

This result, no doubt, might be near enough to the
truth to serve all practical purposes in the application
of this mechanism to its original object, which was
that of paring apples, impaled upon the fork K; but
it can hardly be regarded as entirely satisfactory
in a general way; nor can the analysis which renders
such a result possible.

* * * *
*

THE PANTANEMONE.

The need of irrigating prairies, inundating vines,
drying marshes, and accumulating electricity cheaply
has, for some time past, led to a search for some
means of utilizing the forces of nature better than
has ever hitherto been done. Wind, which figures
in the first rank as a force, has thus far, with all
the mills known to us, rendered services that are
much inferior to those that we have a right to expect
from it with improved apparatus; for the work produced,
whatever the velocity of the wind, has never been greater
than that that could be effected by wind of seven
meters per second. But, thanks to the experiments
of recent years, we are now obtaining an effective
performance double that which we did with apparatus
on the old system.

Desirous of making known the efforts that have been
made in this direction, we lately described Mr. Dumont’s
atmospheric turbine. In speaking of this apparatus
we stated that aerial motors generally stop or are
destroyed in high winds. Recently, Mr. Sanderson
has communicated to us the result of some experiments
that he has been making for years back by means of
an apparatus which he styles a pantanemone.

The engraving that we give of this machine shows merely
a cabinet model of it; and it goes without saying
that it is simply designed to exhibit the principle
upon which its construction is based.

[Illustration: THE PANTANEMONE.]

Two plane surfaces in the form of semicircles are
mounted at right angles to each other upon a horizontal
shaft, and at an angle of 45 deg. with respect to
the latter. It results from this that the apparatus
will operate (even without being set) whatever be the
direction of the wind, except when it blows perpendicularly
upon the axle, thus permitting (owing to the impossibility
of reducing the surfaces) of three-score days more
work per year being obtained than can be with other
mills. Three distinct apparatus have been successively
constructed. The first of these has been running
for nine years in the vicinity of Poissy, where it
lifts about 40,000 liters of water to a height of
20 meters every 24 hours, in a wind of a velocity of
from 7 to 8 meters per second. The second raises
about 150,000 liters of water to the Villejuif reservoir,
at a height of 10 meters, every 24 hours, in a wind
of from 5 to 6 meters. The third supplies the
laboratory of the Montsouris observatory.

The first is not directible, the second may be directed
by hand, and the third is directed automatically.
These three machines defied the hurricane of the 26th
of last January.—­La Nature.